Working life

Autodesk University London 2018 and World Cup 2018

Wow last week was a busy week with a 4 day trip to London for AutoDESK University 2018.

It started off with a 07:09 train from Wigan North Western to London Euston that was delayed by 20 minutes due to trespassers on the line between Lancaster and Preston. Not the start i wanted!

Instead of arriving in Euston at 09.10 and having 50 minutes to travel across London to the Arcadis BIM forum I was left with just 25 minutes to do the same journey.

I arrived at the forum at 10:10 (only 10 minutes late) not too bad as it was at the Tower Hotel near Tower Bridge and St Katherine’s Dock

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The day was spent with approx 120 Arcadians from all over Europe listening to how Arcadis is transforming itself into a Digital and BIM leader within our industry. AutoDESK were also out our internal meeting which shows the partnership and closeness of our two great companies.

In the evening Arcadis had put on a BBQ and beers for our staff to mingle and get to know each other. This was done in a private area outside of the hotel on the banks of the River Thames. We also had a large screen showing England’s opening game in the 2018 World Cup against Tunisia.

Arcadis Staff at the BIM forum

The rooms we were given in the hotel were a little more expensive than our usual budget as we usually have a budget of £125/night however the rooms we’d been allocated were £190/night. This caused some concerns of being able to get them approved and pushed through our expenses system.

Some of the staff had great views of Tower Bridge, like the one below

Tower Bridge

While others like myself had view up the river :(, like the one below

The following day we were all up early for the short walk to Tobacco Dock for AutoDESK University London 2018

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We then had two days of classes and forums from AutoDESK staff and other companies who all use the AutoDESK software from around Europe.

One of my colleagues from Engineering Applications gave a 1 hour presentation alongside a colleague from AutoDESK on BIM360. BIM360 is being adopted by Arcadis as our Common Data Environment. This was particularly interesting.

As with most events the days were long but we did have the evenings to socialise and have a couple of beers to get to know people. Our Tuesday night was spent in a pub on St Katherine’s Docks called The Dickens Inn.

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Day two and we all had to wear our Arcadis (Orange) Tee shirts which allowed the 120 strong Arcadis Group standout from the 1400 visitors to AutoDESK University.

Arcadis Team

Our final night together in London allowed Yannick (France), Roland (Holland) and myself to get out for something to eat

Roland, Gary and Yannick at Tower Bridge

The final day was spent working in Arcadis House before my 2 hour train journey home to catch-up with Michele.

Friday I worked from home and was surprised by a dragon-fly flying into the house and settling down on the window frame next to me for a brief rest.

Dragon-Fly

Saturday I spent time with mum and dad. I even brought dad in to the Manchester office so he could see Manchester from 10 floors up.

Then i went over to spend the later part of the afternoon with Sam my daughter and the grandchildren.

Sunday was going to be all about sport on TV, with the England game against Panama which they comfortably ran out winners with a 6-1 victory. then it was the French Gran-prix before another 2 games of football.

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